Archive for the ‘food’ Category

Hi guys. Today I’m going to teach you how to make a meal of super awesome toasts.

I bet many of you think making toasts is easy, well, hell yeah. But making a super awesome one ain’t… so, consider this a random act of kindness from me.

So let’s get things started already. First of all, the ingredients.

1) Sliced white bread. Get something with a dense white part, and not too thick. Gardenia is good. Again, avoid using other types of bread like wholemeal or butterscotch. Those bread are only suitable as bird feed.

2) Salted butter. Processed from the milk of a cow born on 29th February of odd years. If you can’t find one, get SCS salted butter. (no, adding salt to unsalted butter won’t work). Make sure it is not too soft. Best is to leave it for about 15 – 20 mins at room temp (29C, longer if colder) once it is taken out of the fridge.

3) Sweetened condensed milk. If you do not know what’s a condensed milk, you should probably jump from a very high building. Sweetened condensed milk is ubiquitous in hypermarts and grocery stores. Get a decent one like Susu Cap Junjung or the Teapot brand. Lookout for dead lizards in the can.

4) Proper tools to do the job. A butter knife to spread the love across your toasts, and a fucking toaster. Seriously, use a fucking toaster, not an oven or waffle maker.

And that’s all you ever need. Here are the steps:

First you lay out 2 slices of white bread flat onto a plate. Then you inspect them for flaws.

the sliced white bread should be white and flawless you fuck

Once you’ve completed inspection, setup the toaster. First install a driver called ‘commonsense.py’. Set the toaster to about 30% burnt. Different toasters have varying levels but they all meant the fucking same thing. Mine has 5 levels, so my setting should be about 1.5.

those numbers aren’t indicating the minutes, you dumb fuck

Then you carefully install those inspected sliced white bread pieces into the toaster slots. Make sure they’re seated at the center to allow it to aerate and breathe evenly (alright I just made that up, I just have a mild case of OCD). If your bread slices don’t fit, go buy a new toaster.

correct way to install Sliced Bread 2.0 into Toaster Kernel

You should get the installation right by now. Push down the lever to activate toaster. You should be able to smell the aroma of the bread if it’s working. If it’s not, try to microwave your cellphone.

those glowing little lightsabers are doing their job toasting the damn bread

The toasts are ready when they pop up from the toaster. Now WAIT! Literally that’s what you need to do. You need to cool down the toasts, and yet retain its crispness. Just put them under the fan for 3 minutes. Or you can leave it for 8 minutes 13.45 seconds without a blowing fan.

leave them to cool down, very important

The reason to cool them down is to not ruin the butter. The butter should be creamy on the toast, not melt like grease. If the toasts are hot/warm, the butter will melt and there goes your toasts. Once they’ve been cooled down, spread the butter on one of the toasts like how you’d spread love to a sweet looking poontang.

butter on toast should not melt. if it does, you’ve failed your parents

Then you spread the other piece with the sweetened condense milk. The thing is damn sweet so, spread in moderation unless you’d like some diabetes to go with your toasts.

a thin layer of condensed milk. Only works on toasts, would seep through regular bread

Once you’ve got both sides prepped, carefully assemble them spread-to-spread, just like how a seasoned cobbler glue together the naked sole of a shoe to a rubber outsole. Your toast sandwich is now ready to be devoured.

tadaa! one of the very few non-sex-toy items in the world that gives you orgasm

You know, I’ve always hated bitter gourd as a child and most of my youth. My late mother liked it a lot, and whenever she cooked this dish – ‘Braised Chicken with Bitter Gourd and fermented beans’ (BCBGFB) – I always had to pick out the chunks of bitter gourd like they’re laden with rat poison.

But that changed one day when my wife and I were thinking of doing some adventure cooking (you know adventure cooking? That’s when you attempt to cook something you’ve never done before). For some weird fucking reasons, this BCBGFB came up. With a little bit of Googling around and painful recollection of my lost tastebud memories, I managed to cook this bowl of BCBGFB :Not actual picture of the first dish, this is like, the 4th cookout already…

It kicked so much ass, that I finished most of the bitter gourd myself, and turned into a bitter gourd believer. Amazing isn’t it? Here’s how I did it…

Man… if I were to list down all the animals I’ve ever eaten here in this webspace, this page would look so ridiculously darn long that it’d get mistaken as an opposition government manifesto.

Anyways, the latest thing that got down my throat into my digestive system (hope this doesn’t sound obscene to some of you sick fucks out there…) is something called ‘Balut’. What the fuck is a ‘Balut’? Here’s a brief description I filched from Wikipedia to save me some explaining…

A balut or balot is a developing duck embryo that is boiled alive and eaten in the shell. It is commonly sold as streetfood in the Philippines. They are common food in countries in Southeast Asia, such as Laos (khai look ໄຂ່ລູກ in Lao), Cambodia (pong tia koon ពងទាកូន in Cambodian)[1] and Vietnam (trứng vịt lộn or hột vịt lộn in Vietnamese). They are often served with beer. The Filipino and Malay word balut (balot) means “wrapped”.

Sounds nasty eh? And it looks even more unbelievably nasty. Here’s the one that I ate (after I’ve de-shelled it and sucked its ‘broth’ dry) :

The damn thing looked like the gonad of an animal turned inside out with its testes mashed to smithereens… The first look of it, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to eat it. I mean, there had to be some feathers, bones, beak and whatnots in it – how does one eat it like that? But my Filipino colleague (who brought us the Baluts) insisted that we shouldn’t waste those Baluts and just fucking eat it already (which to them, is a delicacy).

So I did what I did, out of respect – I first sucked the ‘broth’ (boiling water that got seemed into the egg during the boiling process and turned into somekind of duck embryo soup), which I admit, was pretty damn good – and then I ate the Balut with a little bit of salt to the taste (see the nasty picture up there? That one). The texture was like a hardened liver (overboiled) of an animal’s, and there’s only one piece of small thigh bone that I managed to pick out from the half chewed remains, no feathers or beak (at least not hard enough to be discernible). I just chewed everything in and wolfed it down. And you know what? It was actually quite nice. It tasted a lot like eating the chicken meat off a Chinese herbal soup, in spite of the strange texture.

Hell, I thought it was quite good that I took another one. But that was about it, because that was when the feeling of ‘jelak’ started to set in. My Filipino colleague claimed that back in his hometown, the people would hoover one after another Baluts in a casual drinking event (like what peanuts and kuacis would be to us), and they would have as much as 8 Baluts in one sitting! I don’t know, but I don’t think I could even eat 8 normal eggs in one sitting, let alone 8 with embryos in them! Anyway, I experienced a lingering after taste right through the night, which reminded me of the time I had too much stinking toufu in Hong Kong. So I guess this Balut thing is nice in moderation, but extreme nastiness when eaten in quantity. Maybe the Filipinos could eat that much of them because of the beer, as the alcohol dulls the taste in their mouth and out of their addled mind, I don’t know.

Does any of you know how to make a meal of super awesome oriental style fried rice? I bet many of you don’t. Ordinary fried rice maybe, but a super awesome one? Nope. But that may not be the case anymore after you’ve read this tutorial – on how to make a hearty meal for 2 of super awesome oriental style fried rice.

Ingredients:
– Steamed rice (duh.) Cook about a cup, or enough for 2 big eaters. Best to leave the cooked rice overnight in the fridge to rid of the moisture.
– Some onions. Get one if it’s as big as your balls. Two if it’s about the size of your nuts. Chop them up in small pieces.
– Some garlic. Get about 5 – 6 cloves. Chop them up in small pieces too.
– Long beans. Chop them up to about a cup (substitute with other shit if you want, like carrots, potatoes, etc).
– Some roasted pork belly (siew yuk). Gotta have some meat in it to give it some character. Fried rice without meat is a sad fried rice. You can substitute with bacon, seafood, other types of meat or any body-parts you can think of, doesn’t matter… just as long as some animals gotta die for it.
– Some ground pepper.
– Some oil. To grease the fucker and give you energy. You can substitute with pork lard, ghee or butter.
– Soy sauce. If you do not know what’s a soy sauce, you should just give up.
– Fish sauce. It looks like this. You can find it in any hypermart near you.
– Oyster sauce. If you do not know what’s an oyster sauce, you should just fucking die.

The chopped stuff

– OK, now heat up the oil in a frying pan (use the non-stick type, because rice tends to burn/stick on the pan and fuck things up if heat is not regulated to perfection, and we do not want to worry about that. We had enough shit to deal with at work).
– Once oil is heated, toss all the chopped ingredients into the pan (onion, garlic, beans, pork). Fry until fragrant (like, you can smell the stuff real nice).

Fry chopped stuff till fragrant

– Sprinkle ground pepper onto the rice, then add the rice into the bunch of hot stuff in the frying pan. Max out the fire and give it a good mix around for about a minute.

Fry the rice with the fragrant ingredients

– Add about 3 tablespoon full each of these into the mix : oyster sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce. If you’re experienced like me, you can just pour the right amount without measuring. Tablespoons are for amateurs.

Sauce added

– Give them a good toss around in that hot pan. Make as much noise as possible while doing that. It gives an impression around that you’re doing some real shit of a good job frying some kick ass rice.
– Do it for about a minute, and if you do not fall too far out of the normal distribution curve, you should be able to make the rice look all warm, nice and brown like in the pic below.
– You can add some eggs if you want, but in my personal opinion, I think eggs in fried rice is just too gay and doesn’t give it a good all around flavor.

Presenting the super awesome fried rice

Serve it to your mom on Mother’s Day, instead of bringing her out to eat some other shitfuck’s cooking (and avoiding the traffic/crowd). Then witness her hitting the big O (the same one your dad saw when she’s conceiving you) and cry at the same time.

A friend I knew back during my newsgroup days wanted to know what are the cheap good stuff in Penang that he should try out. I made him a list, and thought of sharing it here.
You guys should fucking thank me like, seriously.

*****
Henry, here’s a sample list of food in Penang you must try (where the locals go, tourists don’t know) – and none of the stuff in this list is expensive. All cheap.

Laksa / Chee Cheong fun / Duck Porridge / Muar Chee – N5 22.972 E100 18.242 (island)
One of the best laksa in Penang (apart from the Penang Road laksa). I personally would recommend this over any others (the Air Itam laksa is not even half this good). Also check out the Chee cheong fun with special shrimp paste (mixed with peanut butter), best muar chee in Penang – all at the same place. There is also a stall next door selling awesome tou foo fah. Closed on mondays. Lunch only.

Char Koay Teow – N5 23.333 E100 23.218 (mainland)
One of the best in Penang (definitely wayyyy better than that stupid Lorong fucking Selamat char koay teow). Closed on Tuesdays I think, lunch only. Note: The guy who stir fries the Koay Teow is the dad with mustache. If you see the son, or the wife stir fries the koay teow, don’t order. Wait until the dad shows up. The old man sometimes have business to settle outside and comes in late for work.

Banana Leaf Indian food – N5 23.281 E100 23.288 (mainland)
Just nearby the char koay teow place. Cheapest in Penang, and one of the best. (I acknowledge that the Indian food business is a gray territory, because most of them are pretty good. But this is definitely good and cheap).

Cendol – N5 20.964 E100 26.074 (mainland)
Shared this with you before. A stall just outside the food court. Best cendol in the world (served with pulut). Only RM1.20. I always whack 2 bowls back to back (without the pulut though). After 12pm only. Closed on certain week days, not sure which.

Bak Kut Teh – N5 21.627 E100 26.689 (mainland)
Notice that there are 2 joints opposite each other with the same name. Both are equally awesome, because both are estranged brothers from the same master (that’s what I heard). But I personally prefer this one (the one near a road junction). Serves lunch and dinner (but closed in between lunch / dinner hours). Closed on certain days, not sure which.

Curry Mee – N5 23.610 E100 17.888 (island)
Curry mee is a very subjective topic. Different people have different definition of how a bowl of good curry mee should taste. To me, a good bowl of curry me has to have garlic in its ingredients. This stall in a morning market here, is one of the very few in Penang that serves curry mee with a distinct garlic taste. Morning only, 8 – 9 am. Make sure you ask for more chilli paste (because that’s what making it special).

Curry Mee – N5 25.156 E100 19.451 (island)
Been quite a name in the internet lately. If you missed the morning curry mee above, come here. Also one of the very few curry mee with distinct garlic taste. Lunch (and dinner, I think). Cocky bastard manning the stall inside but, his food is pretty good, so it is forgivable.

Yong tou foo / Popiah – N5 24.799 E100 19.100 (island)
The Yong Tou Foo here is a fav amongst the locals, and the popiah sold by a mamak family is also awesome. Only available from 1.30pm onwards till 4pm. A true roadside hawker style.

Oyster Omelette, Firewood pizza – N5 24.994 E100 19.429 (island)
Sin Kim San coffee shop’s oyster omelette. I’d kill a kitten to have a plate of the oyster omelette here – it is THAT good. 8 bucks a big plate with fat juicy oysters. The stall is located on the same row as the firewood pizza – which in my opinion, is the BEST in the WORLD (really). The pizza usually have to wait for at least 40 minutes due to the long queue. Go there after 6pm. Closed on Mondays I think.

Hokkien Mee / Oyster Sauce chicken rice – N5 23.539 E100 18.443 (island)
I’ve blogged about the stall in this coffee shop selling Hokkien Mee before. It converted me into a believer of Hokkien Mee (I wasn’t a fan until I came here). The chicken rice stall next to it is also very good. Go there in the morning (8 – 9am is fine).

Hokkien Lor Mee, toast, coffee – N5 25.048 E100 19.742 (island)
You know Old Town? Fuck Old Town. Come here instead. You get better food at a fraction of Old Town’s price. The Hokkien Lor Mee (shrimp soup mixed with the starchy gravy) is my favorite. Ask for pickled garlic. At a short distance away (shortcut walk through the back alley of this Hai Onn coffee shop), you can buy a plate of Char Koay Kak (stir friend rice cake), at this location N5 25.030 E100 19.745, and bring over to enjoy with your toast and bowl of Hokkien Lor Mee.

Char Koay Kak 1 – N5 25.398 E100 19.307 (island)
The location is unmarked and is approximate. Everyone who lives in Penang know this stall. Only available after 8pm (could be earlier – not sure). Extra greasy with pork lard and artery clogging. But VERY good. Closed on Sundays.

Char Koay Kak 2 – N5 24.270 E100 17.201 (island)
The Char Koay Kak here is also nice. Equally greasy and artery clogging, this will be my hang out joint if I don’t feel like going to town to get Char Koay Kak 1 up there. Closed on certain days, not sure which.

‘Sup Kambing’ – N5 25.330 E100 20.045 (island)
This is the famous Sup Kambing (actually, many types of soup) at upper Penang road. If I ever go drinking with my buddies in this area, chances are high that I’d drop by for a bowl of heaty ‘sup kambing’ (mutton soup). Also serves decent roti canai, nasi kandar and a whole of bunch of those kind of stuff. Dinner till wee hours in the morning.

Beef soup Koay teow – N5 24.685 E100 22.322 (mainland)
Best beef soup koay teow in Penang, easily, hands down. If you have not tried Ta Han beef soup koay teow at Kg. Benggali, then you’ve not tried anything. Outside the coffee shop, there’s a stall selling ‘Kan Tong’, which is a type of creamy sweet grain dessert, operated by an Indian bloke who speaks fluent Hokkien (sometimes operated by an Indian lady). Use the dessert to wash down your beef soup, all in less than 10 bucks (beef soup + dessert). You’ll cum in your pants. Opposite the coffee shop, there is also a Malay lady selling kick ass curry puffs at only 40 cents a piece. So if you can try all 3 in one lunch, you would have achieved nirvana in a true 1Malaysia fashion, while cumming in your pants. Go there during lunch time (as early as 11am). Closed on Tuesdays.

Wan Thun Mee –
Wan thun mee is a stupid no brainer food. Only requires good quality noodles, and some soy sauce or something. One gotta just know how to mix the right amount of sauces to get it right. So that boils down to how good the wan thun (pork dumpling) is, and for that you can go to following stalls that I’ve personally been and found to be quite ok:
Sri Siam coffee shop – N5 21.874 E100 26.726 (mainland) – lunch only. Closed on Tuesdays.
Chulia street – N5 25.089 E100 20.183 (island) – go there after 7pm.
Terengganu road wtm – N5 24.338 E100 18.512 (island) – unmarked/approximate location. Go there after 8pm.
Greenlane – N5 23.704 E100 18.101 (island) – Go there after 7 pm.
Greenlane Heights – N5 23.610 E100 17.888 (island) – same area as curry mee recommended above. Morning only.

Ok, I think this should be good enough for you for now. I think I can go on to produce a dozen more lists like this… hahah. Enjoy your search man.